Give Trump some credit. Of course Jerusalem should be the capitol of a one state solution. Palestine.

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Eric Verlo

OH BOY. It’s Trump’s most politically insensitive move yet, recognizing Jerusalem to be the capitol of Israel, as no other nation in the world will do because it means colluding with an illegal territorial claim. Moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv means giving official sanction to what the United Nations has declared to be against international law. Criminal insanity. But Trump wants to move the “Peace Process” forward and let’s be fair, that sham has been a cover to keep shrinking the prospects for Palestinians, to the point that few dispute the eroded viability of a two state solution. So let’s move this invasive “process” along. The sooner Israel crowns its land grab with a undivided Jerusalem, the sooner Israelis can be made to confront, and renounce racist Apartheid. When Israel’s democracy is forced to grant equal rights to non-Jews, the theocracy of Israel will become PALESTINE. And America won’t have to move its embassy.

The two state solution is dead. Good riddance to that lie. Neither side wanted or believed it.

Zionists have always intended a one state solution. Their ethnic cleansing of the Occupied Territories and their warmongering against Syria are designed to thin the Islamic population of Greater Israel such that it will always remain the minority, especially when Israel is forced to release its Palestinian citizens from their segregated Favelas. Israel is not finished with its “peace process” of killing or driving off the legitimate occupants of the Holy Land. Declaring the invasion a victory sooner than later will mean more Palestinians could survive to see the day they’ll be given the right to vote. That’s when a democratic process will decide whose Holy Lands these are, and lead their people to a post-colonial era.

US & Israel leave UNESCO, cite its bias against heritage of invasive cultures.

Posted on October 12, 2017 by Eric Verlo

The U.S. and Israel exploit UNESCO when they want academic cover to extend their authority over cultural heritage sites, to legitimize their spheres of interest in lands they don’t belong. Now that Palestinians are poised to use UNESCO to protect and preserve their own patently obvious ancestral claims, in contradiction to those of usurpers, the bullies want to take their ball and go home.

The Denver Islamophobes “Americans Against Terrorism” plan another rally calling for war, not peace, with Iran.

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Eric Verlo

DENVER, COLORADO- In view of the anticipated US peace agreement with Iran, a Denver warmongering group Americans Against Terrorism (AAT) is planning a June 28 rally at the state capitol to reject any treaty which permits Iran to develop nuclear power. Their poster depicts a mushroom cloud over a Denver-flat metropolis, demonstrating that AAT knows exactly what it means to use terror and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. Unsurprisingly, AAT didn’t have anything to say against the Charleston Church Shooting or other acts of domestic terrorism. (Or against racism.) AAT’s agenda has been to advance Israel’s interests, right now that’s drumming for war against Iran. Last year AAT rallied to support Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza, “Operation Protective Edge”, which left 2,300 Palestinians dead and another 10,800 injured. Most of the casualties were women and children. Recently, AAT joined the equally pro-Israel Stand-With-Us to counter a successful BDS ad campaign running on Denver RTD buses. That’s who is rallying for “peace” this Sunday. Fortunately real antiwar activists plan a counter-protest.

Forget the one state solution, or two, Israelis have earned a no state solution

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Eric Verlo

Ayelet Shaked
It used to be controversial to call for a ONE STATE SOLUTION to end the fighting over Palestine. Israelis and their American Zionist supporters rightly feared that without bantustans to isolate Palestinians, Israel’s Jews would become the minority and democracy would upend the legitimacy of a Jewish state. To be fair, that’s not only probable, it’s inevitable. But how cavalier to wait confidently as Palestinians continue to suffer reprisals and recently a teenager abducted and burned alive by marauding Jewish settlers incited by Israeli ministers calling for collective punishment and genocide. Nevermind the IDF air strikes burning Gazans alive. Yeah, maybe it’s time to stop pretending a Zionist theocracy can be democratic, and stop pretending that invaders and occupiers want “peace”. They want their conquest and human rights abuses left in peace. End this thinly veiled western colonial adventure. Palestine for Palestinians, not Europeans and Americans claiming a “birthright” that usurps a refugee’s right of return.

Israel wouldn’t know a “historic mistake” if it looked in the mirror

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Eric Verlo

International diplomats have secured an agreement with Iran which appears to diffuse current tensions. Hurray! Crippling economic sanctions will be relaxed in exchange for limiting Iran’s capability to produce atomic weapons. Everybody is breathing easier except Israel. Why? Is the Israeli regime worried that critics who want its Apartheid theocracy “wiped from the map” (actually, from the road map to peace) need a bomb to do it? Israel’s racist and inhumane policies are bringing it down all of its own. Are Israelis worried there’s now a precedent to ask Israel to disarm its own nuclear arsenal or face sanctions? The problem is more likely that a less scary Iran will be much harder to warmonger around. Who needs a pretend democracy in the Middle East if there’s no Islamic boogeyman threatening the hegemony of the dollar and calling into question the inherent immorality of banking debt-perpetuated penury?

What’s rich is Israel, and its captive US press, declaring the agreement with Iran a “historic mistake”. Because verbatim, HISTORIC MISTAKE is growing to be the consensus among historians, in answer to the question what-is-Israel? Google it. Israel: the misguided UN decision in 1948 to colonize the Middle East by dispossessing Palestinians to create a Jewish state necessitating a “peace process” which has proven to be just the opposite.

What Does Democracy Look Like? Not likely the Old Testament Thank You

Posted on September 7, 2013 by Eric Verlo

I attended Occupy Denver’s forum “What Does Democracy Look Like?” this weekend to hear activist scholars of considerable repute throw in their two cents. The first day was a splendid gathering, except where a curated discussion of intentional community lapsed into theology. Yes, a distillation of mostly white reform literature (Fanon was dismissed as wayward) yielded three steps for The Way Forward: Egypt, Exodus and the Promised Land. Yep.

By which he meant: 1) Recognize your enslavement, 2) have the courage to leave all for an uncertain fate in the desert, and 3) seek/develop/discover your own promised land.

Even as metaphor it’s embarassing. Enlightened salvation from Old Testament mythology? No thank you, and for that matter, up yours! Unfortunately the language I used was less restrained, but his religious offensiveness had been compounding. He’d begun his presentation admonishing listeners that transformation begins with the self and so he’d already unmasked himself as spiritual. Worse, a monotheist.

Egypt: I’ll come back to “systems of oppression” in a moment.

The Exodus: a myth, it didn’t happen, even Hebrew scholars now agree with the historical and archeological records.

As to the Promised Land: that was a real estate scheme to backdate a deed, offered as divinely conceived proof of landlordship. The same title is being waived around to dispossess Palestinians today.

But really, isn’t the exodus-to-promised-land malarkey at the very foundation of Western Civilization’s expansion problem?! Are we really all entitled to virgin land? As if earth hasn’t been continuously and fully inhabited since before agrarian civilization, before monotheism was conceived to impose inequity, and justify slave-wages, interest and rent. The craddle of exploitation, that was Egypt.

But can we run from Egypt? The remedy staring us in the face, from which common men are deliberatly destracted, conspiring to emancipate Egypt, is to rid ourselves of the oppressor sociopaths. In practical terms understood more clearly by the better educated before us, we must strangle Egypt’s kings with the entrails of its priests.

I don’t care how academic your garb, when you tell your flock to reapply themselves to the sacred, and your “sacred” is biblical, supposing to transcend nature, you’re a priest.

Thank you WDDLL organizers but I do not go to church and I resent when devious means are employed to bring it to me. Actually those priests are the worst, they’re missionaries! If we’ve learned one thing as we discuss mankind’s break from his mille millenia of sustainable existance, resist the colonizer. Conquored peoples ourselves, we can only wish that indigenous peoples could have given Western missionaries the reception they deserved, and it’s no less true today: fire.

Alas as a result I heard a number of attendees today praise their faith. To each his own, but unhelpful. If you have to evangelize you’re a liability because nonsense is infectuous, especially as education levels recede. Can others entrust you with the battleplan while you commune with the adversary?

There’s a wonderful scene in AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD, Werner Herzog’s dramatic depiction of conquistadors wreaking havoc in the Amazon. Following a coup among the greedy Spaniards, the wife of the abruptly deposed leader appeals to the mission’s priest, as her last resort to restore order. The priest, her ally only moments before, turns on her thus: “Her ladyship must know that the church always stands on the side of the strong.”

First Colorado BDS Conference held in Denver to end occupation of Palestine

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Eric Verlo

DENVER, COLORADO- The first Colorado BDS Conference on April 13 held on the Auraria campus in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel to restore rights to Palestinians, end Israeli Apartheid, and end the occupation of Palestine.

Israel caught birth controlling the Falash Mura, ethnically cleansing Jews of false flesh tone

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Eric Verlo

How’s this for a Wikipedia item update? After five years of having denied the practice, the Israeli government admits it is secretly administering birth control injections to its Falash Mura population, reducing that community’s birth rate by half. Falash Mura you may ask, translates to “horse of the raven” –consult Wikipedia if you’d like to see some champion dissembling from the racist imagery of that term– and refers to the descendents of Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, contested as improbably Jewish on account of their skin color making Semitic Europeans uncomfortable. Israel has very reluctantly offered birthright invites to their Ethiopian Diasporans. Israel’s Law of Return is not to be confused with the International Right of Return, to which all refuges are entitled, which Israel refuses to grant Palestinians, the original and more likely descendents of ALPHA ISRAEL. But getting back to this breaking story on Zionist racism, it turns out Israel has been preemptively ethnically cleansing their darkies, no worse than the US does with ghettos, drugs, cheap guns, and the prison industrial complex.

Should the London Olympics remember the 1972 Munich Holocaust? Do you?

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Eric Verlo

America can’t memorialize the 1972 Munich hostage killings, because that act of terrorism was not unlike our own airstrikes or special ops raids, against purported enemy combatants, off the field of combat, except we don’t even try to kidnap them alive.

Of course the Israeli Olympic wrestlers and weightlifters killed in Munich in 1972 should be memorialized. But to call the deaths a massacre pretends the German police meant their ambush to kill everyone.* What happened at the 1972 Olympics is being recalled as the “Munich Massacre” but even the propagandists tweaking the Wikipedia entry don’t have the temerity to doff the disclaimer that “massacre” is the informal name. Shall we recall what happened? On September 5, 1972, PLO terrorists infiltrated the Olympic village and tried to kidnap Israeli hostages to exchange for 234 Palestinians held by Israel. Two Israelis fought back and were killed. Next the eight gunman and their nine captives were led into an ambush at a military airfield. After a 1 & 1/2 hour gun battle on the tarmac, trapped under the helicopters by police snipers, the PLO killed four of their captives. A police investigation revealed the remaining five captives may have died in sniper crossfire. This detail is disputed, but a secret financial settlement was sought and reached with German authorities. So, was Munich a massacre or a botched hostage rescue? Do words matter? The Mossad’s retaliatory murder of an innocent Moroccan waiter in Norway, mistaken for the Munich mastermind, is trivialized as the Lillehammer Affair.

Proponents want an Olympic tribute to the Munich Massacre “so that it never happens again.” Boy does that ever have a familiar ring to it. Look out for an Elie Wieselish re-tailoring of the original narrative, Steven Spielberg’s Munich being only a recent example of a myth-makeover remembrance.

To begin with, the PLO kidnappers were a faction of the PLO called the Black September Brigade, named after the Black September purge of the PLO from Jordan. This ouster, aided by the US and fought by Syria, was initiated by Israel’s attack on the village of Karameh, in which the PLO suffered 200 killed, to the IDF’s 28. Not a massacre because 150 PLO fighters were taken captive. Wikistorians taking liberties with translation are calling the PLO group “Black September”, with the effect of obfuscating the event which preceded the Munich operation.

The Munich raid to seize hostages was actually named “Operation Iqrit and Kafr Bir’im” after the Christian villages of Kafr Bir’im and Iqrit, ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948. Villagers were granted right of return by Israel’s supreme court, but overruled by the military. An attempt to return had been repulsed by police as recently as August 1972, as the Olympics began.

Next, the identity of the Israeli athletes is always left incomplete. With the exception of the 18 year old Russian immigrant, all the Israeli hostages were IDF soldiers who’d participated in military acts against Palestine, Egypt, lebanon, Jordan, or Syria, and so are not exactly the innocent civilians of current retellings.

Who killed the Israeli captives during the gun battle with German police? An immediate investigation found that sniper fire may have hit the captives, as it had also severely wounded a fellow policeman. A cover-up long obscured the official reports. While this could be pretended to protect the German participants, it also kept the blame on the PLO gunmen, which would have been critical to justify Israel’s “eye for an eye” revenge killings.

Did the gunman strafe their hostages with bullets upon seeing the arrival of the police armored reinforcements? The only witness accounts come from the German authorities. We might accept that the lead PLO gunman lobbed a grenade into the first helicopter with the intention of killing the four hostages it contained, if they were still alive. An autopsy revealing that one of the Israelis died from the flames is used the emphasize that the grenade, and thus a PLO terrorist, certainly killed him.

Though the German police admitted potential culpability for the deaths of the five hostages in the second helicopter, a later analysis put convenient blame on a particular gunman, one of them ones captured and who eventually escaped justice by being released. Certainly this narrative would be critical if Israel hoped for popular support for their effort to hunt the gunman down.

Many of Israel’s revenge killings involved car bombs which risked collateral deaths and injuries. Assassinating the “mastermind” killed eight others, including a nun, and injured 18 more.

Whether the PLO gunmen killed the Israelis or not, even the operation’s planners can’t be said to have intended it. No one masterminded a massacre.

Of the PLO participants in Munich, five gunman were killed, and three were captured. Those three were released weeks later to meet the demands of a subsequent hijacking. Israel’s Mossad boasted of having tracked them down and assassinated them shortly thereafter. But accounts vary, and one of them was interviewed decades later for a documentary. What’s known is that Israel implemented an “eye for an eye” operation that over 20 years hunted and killed 20-35 Palestinian targets. They weren’t sought out to take hostage but to murder, and most of them were unconnected to the Black September Brigade. The Mossad long-arm-of-the-law theme was less about revenge than deterrence, because anyone who might have masterminded or abetted the Munich plot was planning a kidnapping not a murder.

If a massacre is measured by an imbalance of casualties, let’s look at the numbers. After 11 Israelis were murdered, Israel retaliatory airstrikes killed 200 in Syria and Lebanon, an IDF raid killed up to 100 in Lebanon, and the Mossad targeted up to 35 in subsequent assassinations. Here’s an accounting:

Sept 5-6, 1972
11 Israeli athletes, coaches former IDF
(2 killed by BSB in initial break-in, 9 killed during the ambush rescue attempt, possibly by crossfire)
1 German police
5 PLO gunmen

Sept 8, 1972
IAF retaliatory airstrikes on PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon.
200 Palestinians killed, including women and children

IDF Operation “SPRING OF YOUTH” raid on Lebanon, April 1973
3 PLO suspected planners
12-100 PLO members
1 PLO wife
1 Italian woman
2 Lebanese policemen
Unknown number of Lebanese civilians

Mossad Operation “WRATH OF GOD”, (20-35 targets over 20 years)
PLO translator of disputed BSB involvement, Oct 1972
PLO senior official, December 1972
Palestinian activist “expertly” pushed under bus, London, 1972
Jordanian Fatah rep, January 1973
Law professor at Am Univ of Beirut, April, 1973
Replacement for Fatah rep, Athens, April 1973
(2 BSB minor members injured, Rome, April 1973)
PLO director of operations for BSB, June 1973
Moroccan waiter, mistaken identity, Norway, July 1973
3 Arab-looking men, Switzerland, January 1974
Arab security guard, Spain, August 1974
PLO rep, blamed on the Abu Nidal Org, London, January 1978
2 PLO reps, Paris, August 1978 (3 injured)
PLO suspected “mastermind”, car-bomb, January 1979, also killed:
4 Bodyguards
1 British student
1 German nun
2 Lebanese passersby (also 18 injured)
PLO military head, Cannes, July 1979
2 Palestinians, December, 1979
PLO rep, Brussels, June 1981
2 PLO senior figures, car bomb, Rome, June 1982
PLO senior official, car bomb, Paris, July 1982
PLO senior official, drive-by, Athens, August 1983
PLO Secretary-General, drive-by, Athens, June 1986
PLO official, car bomb, Athens, October 1986
2 Palestinians, car bomb, Cyprus, February 1988 (1 other wounded)
PLO suspected head of intelligence, June 1992

What’s that? The ratio is 11 to 335 and the Israelis want to call it a massacre? If you count the Palestinians killed in the initial Black September attack on the PLO in Jordan, the comparison becomes irrelevant.

But the Munich ratio is nothing compared to the 1,500 Gazans killed in Operation Cast Lead. Now there’s a massacre.

*ON THE OTHER HAND. The botched hostage rescue in Munich might very well have been a massacre. Do we really want to go there? The German snipers who initiated the gun battle at Furstenfeldbruck Airbase may really have behaved with a total disregard to the fate of the Israeli hostages. With the antisemitism that prevailed in Europe, and still prevails there among the working classes, it’s very likely the policemen looked at the gunmen and their captives with equal scorn. If the bound Israelis weren’t hit in the crossfire, it could certainly be held that the sniper attack provoked their killing. The coverup and subsequent private financial settlement reached between Germany and the Israeli survivors suggests a culpability of the like. In that respect, if European Jews look back at Munich 1972 and say it was a massacre, I believe them.

Gilad Shalit trade goes to Israel’s head

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Israeli settlers in Silwan gloat about Gilad Shalit trade ration But that’s not news. Trade ratio of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for one Gilad Shalit could not but encourage the Zionist notion that Israeli Jews are worth more than your average cretinous Palestinian. Of course, Palestine held only one prisoner, versus Israel’s 6,000, so Israelis might consider that Shalit was worth only 16% of real exchange rate. Mathematicians might wonder how any multiple of non-Jews could be considered equal to one Jew. Apartheid suggests you don’t want to be compared to a low-life nothing, especially at a magnitude. Really, are Palestinians supposed to make peace with that?

The trade is complicated by several factors. One, Shalit gets to go home, while many of the Palestinians are being released into exile. Likewise, Shalit returns to safety while the Israel is free to detain Palestinians at whim, those released or any multitude of other, their relatives for example, or have them killed in airstrikes. So it’s actually a raw deal.

Israel retains 5,000 captives, but if you count Gaza, described as an open air prison, what’s the number really?

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Eric Verlo

In honor of Oct 2, the International Day of Nonviolence, which hardly any government of the world honors IN DEED, especially the league of NATO and USA’s coalition of the killing. I thought I’d perseverate further on the role nonviolent dogma plays in squashing dissent. Here’s my theme: If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks the antiwar movement of the 60s might have deposed the military industrial complex before it became supersized, privatized and above the law. Or not, but NV claptrap certainly got us nowhere.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, Gaza might have been liberated already. Nonviolent kabuki demonstrations have spoiled attempted marches from Egypt, have scuttled would-be flotillas, have squeezed out real activists from sailing to Gaza’s rescue. Ask yourself, which brought more attention and sympathy for Palestinians, the Mavi Marmara or “The Audacity of Hope” which didn’t even show audacity enough to confront Greek harbor keepers? The Turkish activists on the Marmara were nonviolent, but not neurotically so. They might have expelled their Israeli boarders, but we have to pretend at least surprise at the brutality of Israel’s massacre. The US Boat on the other hand exchanged indignation over bullhorns without ever leaving the harbor, then stood down. Nonviolence doesn’t mean passivity, really?

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, the Palestinian’s right to defend their homeland from their occupiers would not be an issue. If Palestine was allowed to resist their invaders, Israel would stop trying to take it all.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, Bush could not have stolen a second election and Americans wouldn’t have had to settle for hope instead of change.

If it wasn’t for the nonviolence sneaks with their ultimatums of passivity, who knows how soon the New World Order might have been prevented? It’s the nonviolence sneaks who are the most despicable provocateurs, alienating the 99% by ensuring public protest remain forever ineffectual.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, antiwar movements would end war, social injustices would be righted, and greed brought to justice.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks who enforce public compliance, world governments would respect their people and couldn’t rule by fear.

If if wasn’t for the nonviolence sneaks, the public’s urgent will would be heeded, instead of dismissed for inconsequential whine it’s become.

French craft DIGNITY breaks for Gaza, leads Flotilla II until rest allowed to go

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Eric Verlo

UPDATED– In a flurry of conflicting tweets, French Flotilla II member DIGNITE AL KARAMA made for the open sea, beyond the reach of Greek authorities currently detaining the AUDACITY OF HOPE, TAHRIR, LOUISE MICHEL, GUERNICA, JULIANO and others. Reporter Quentin Girard has been communicating the DIGNITY’s progress, its eight activists electing last night to complete their run all the way to Gaza.

The French vessel escaped Greece on a technicality, as a pleasure craft, the Dignity is not confined by the regulations being used to block the larger Flotilla participants. Aboard the Dignity with Girard, are Olivier Besancenot, Julien Rivoire, Omeyyaa Sedic, Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, Annick Coupé, Nabil Ennasr. (Both Coupé and Besancenot are registered on Twitter, but neither has communicated yet.)

Girard’s most recent tweets, translated:

July 5, 3:02
All is well thank you 🙂 but we were in an area where reception was bad.

July 5, 3:15
Despite what we can read, the Dignity is still in international waters. It will be there in one hour.

July 5, 7:41
The passengers of the Dignity have finally come to the decision (only now really) to go to Gaza.

July 5, 8:19
TF1 should attempt to rejoin Dignity and embark.

July 5, 8:43
We’re moving again after a “media” pause on the high seas. 15 hours of sea left before I might go silent. Kisses!

July 5, 12:19
Into the night the DIGNITY continues its advance. In the distance, small lights.

July 5, 13:38
Not really enough beds for everyone, so I sleep under the stars on the upper deck. beautiful sky.

In their original French:

05.07 3:02
tout va bien merci 🙂 mais on était dans un endroit où ça captait mal.

05.07 3:15
Malgré ce qu’on peut lire le Dignité n’est pas encore dans les eaux internationales. Il y sera dans une heure.

05.07 7:41
Les passagers du Dignité viennent de prendre enfin (seulement maintenant vraiment) la décision d’aller jusqu’à Gaza

05.07 8:19
TF1 devrait tenter de rejoindre le Dignité et embarquer dessus

05.07 8:43
On bouge à nouveau après une pause “média” en haute mer. C’est parti pour 15h de mer, où je risque d’être silencieux. Des bises.

05.07 12:19
Dans la nuit le dignité avance toujours. Au loin, des petites lumières.

05.07 13:38
Pas vraiment de couchettes pour tout le monde, donc je dors à la belle étoile, sur le pont supérieur. Beau ciel

Below is the Girard’s July 5 article in the LIBERTE.FR (auto-translated, sorry, until I can review it)

En route to Gaza, “Dignity” is appealing to the media

The French ship of the “freedom flotilla” sailing in international waters off the coast of Greece. The crew decided to go to Gaza.

By QUENTIN GIRARD special envoy on the “Dignity”

16 hours in Greece, somewhere in international waters, on Tuesday afternoon. After much discussion, the Dignity passengers finally made their decision. They will go to Gaza. A bit surreal moment where the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, they set up banners and make an official statement.

When they left the industrial port of Salamina, Monday morning, they did not really know how far they try to go. There, as they finally arrived in international waters a little to 15 hours – after wet night in a small cove – they say they are determined. “We’re going to Gaza. The French and international community officially announced that they supported us regardless of our decision, “enthuses Julien Rivoire, one of the spokesmen of the campaign. “But to get there, we also need the media, as TV join us to show our work and safety issues,” he continues.

In the distance we see no island, not even a few freighters, these little black spots that usually reassuring scattered throughout the year. “We wanted to show that we could block the Greek blockade, says Julien Rivoire. It once was that we wondered what we were doing then. ”

Return to France? Impossible

That same morning, the discussion was intense as ever on the Dignity. What to do? Return to France? Impossible for them. Go to another country such as Tunisia symbolic to wait, to show that it is a stopover? Why not, it’s better, they say. But no. The only viable solution they think is necessary. Go to Gaza. “You have the dignity to the end represents French and international committees,” argues Olivier Besancenot.

“The important thing that determines the political feasibility, technical feasibility, must be as representative as possible and supported,” Nabil Esnari continues, President of the Association of Muslims in France. “We do not want to be seen as Islamic-leftist Khmer-green-act in our corner,” says the MP-Europe Ecology Nicole Kiil-Nielsen.

“My preference would be to go to Gaza without delay,” takes on Olivier Besancenot position as others. “Our protection is proof that we exist, we continue to move forward. We can not afford to become a ghost ship. ”

There remains the question of technical means. The Dignity is a small yacht of 15 meters long, categorized craft. It was originally one of the smaller boats in the fleet. He has no self to go off the ridge to Gaza. It would necessarily need to be refueled and water en route. Hence the difficulty that there will in the coming hours to coordinate the political ambitions and technical means.

A small creek, goats, and … Sea

But they want confident. The twelve passengers (1) are refreshed by their two days at sea after a week of pitfalls in Athens. Although the coup, the Greek landscapes provide a particular coloration to the adventure. In the capital locked up in meeting rooms to multiply the points and plan protests, the mood was serious and solemn. Not even have time to visit the Acropolis.
There hard to escape the Greek islands. On the night of Monday and Tuesday, the Dignity was anchored in a cove of a small island. In the morning, passengers were woken up by goats with bells tinkle merrily. A shepherd ran along the cliff, the whoop, some small white houses with blue shutters, of steep cliffs, the water so beautiful … “In the morning, you go through three stages,” said Olivier Besancenot. “First you wake up, you do not know where you are, then you look around you and you say,” oh yes, it’s beautiful. ” And just after you wonder what’s next meeting, what is the plan that will be put in place. ”

The Plan: Gaza, having embarked with TVs. Maybe he will change in the coming hours. Meanwhile, the Dignity vogue. Engine noise makes deaf. The smell of fuel oil a little drunk. In front, nothing. The sea, just the sea.

(1) On board were three crew members, eight activists – Olivier Besancenot addition there are Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, MP, Europe-ecology, Annick Coupe, spokesman for the union Solidarity trade union, or Nabil Ennasr, President the Collective of Muslims in France – and a journalist, the author of these lines.

The earlier July 4 Liberte.fr article:

On board the “Dignity”, en route to Gaza

A French ship with a few activists on board, including Olivier Besancenot and Annick Coupé, eventually left Athens and headed to Gaza despite the obstacles. The “flotilla to Gaza” is reduced to its simplest expression. The story of our special correspondent on the deck of “Dignity.”

By QUENTIN GIRARD special envoy on the “Dignity”

“The pins in the plastic, it will not be possible,” said Olivier Besancenot, in full session yourself. 11 hours on Monday, in a small Greek port. The Dignity Al Kamara, one of two ships of the French committee for Gaza, left at dawn the creek near the industrial town of Salamina, where he had hidden for three days. In another cove where he made a first step, the passengers – including Besancenot, so – try to install the satellite antenna to communicate with the outside world.

3 o’clock this morning, Julien Rivoire, a member of the NPA and a spokesman for the campaign called “Wake the captain, we’re back.” Between them and the small annex that links with the boat, watchdogs of the port or adjacent businesses. They bark violently at night. They fail to wake the whole neighborhood. Tunisian Omeyyaa Sedic and Julien Rivoire, equipped with the latest load required, can not pass. Latest in a series of tragicomic events that marked the week of the fleet. “We’re not James Bond, it is OSS 117” is trying to be amused Julien Rivoire finally climbing on Dignity.

Plaisance

Sunday evening, the decision was made. It was long in coming, interspersed with calls to Iniohos Hotel where the rest of the delegation. A consensus is emerging: the Dignity attempt to leave no matter what. This small yacht 13 meters long, having left France ten days ago, has a status of “craft” and is theoretically not subject to the same prohibition to start than other boats of the delegation.

On Friday, an American ship tried starting one. Saturday, the captain was imprisoned. It could several years in prison for having left without permission. After several announcements bullies, to show their determination and their will as strong as ever to go to Gaza to bring humanitarian assistance, the committees have defected last one after the other. Masters of Spanish ships and Canada have announced that they did not want to take as many risks as they were sure they could not be more than thirty meters. The former president of Greenpeace France, Alain Connan, captain of the main French ship Louise Michel, after long hesitation, agreed with this position, some attracted by the Greek jails.

He went to ask permission to start at the harbor. Refused of course. The passengers were then organized a demonstration on the deck of Louise Michel. They simulated a departure. They should all file a complaint for obstruction of freedom of movement in the afternoon.

Parano

5 o’clock this morning, the Dignity springs. The sun is not up yet. Some cargo ships moving in the distance. Around him, two or three carcasses that rust for too many years, the ferry may be ready to leave but which seem, at dawn, desperate still. Twelve boats, twenty-two different nationalities and several hundred passengers announced, the fleet is now reduced to three crew members, eight militants – Olivier Besancenot addition there are Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, MP europe-ecology, Annick Coupe, spokesman for the union Solidarity trade union, or Nabil Ennasr, president of the Collective of Muslims in France – and a journalist, the author of these lines.

The Dignity enters the channel. In the distance, lights, shadows indistinct, but no coastguard. Surprise among the passengers. They believed they were identified and a small star suddenly arise between two cargo ships to stop them. For two days, each gull, each fishing boat, each jet-ski with the big guys who spend every man piss in the night under the white lights of the port is an opportunity when paranoid.

To starboard there. A port, nothing. In the distance behind, already, the lights of Athens. The sun appears between two hills. After a week of failure or disruption, and the blows of fate have joined forces to keep them in port, for the first time the French committee actually managed something in Greece. They feel like defeat stress, even if they are tired, even if the tension is palpable at times between them, although discussions and waiting endlessly sometimes not.

Determination

Of course, they know that this little boat is not much. That Israel, obviously, has won the game this time and that the only issue that remains is to show that they have tried everything, it’s not a “fucking failure”, as stated Besancenot. Certainly they know that it is unlikely to go to Gaza, especially alone. Unless a Greek ship to join them. The committee led by Vengelis Pissias announced that they had a new, third, a “surprise” that the authorities do not know. But they have promised so many things since the beginning of last week …

The Dignity vogue. It will reach international waters in a few hours if not arrested by the Coast Guard before. There, passengers will make official statements. They expressed their determination against the blockade of Gaza and denounced the attitude of the international community against them. They then announce the next steps. If there is a sequel.

June 25 Le Monde article:

Gaza flotilla II imminent departure

A year after the arrest of a murderer off the first convoy of Israel, a new international fleet prepares to sail to Gaza to try to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian enclave. Unlike last year, two French ships involved in the operation.

The first of these ships, the “Louise Michel”, is currently in Greece. The second, “Dignity-Al Karama” sailed this morning from the Ile-Rousse in Corsica. I get on one of them and try to deliver on this blog Monde.fr the story of the expedition.

A campaign launched in October 2010

This project, called “A French boat to Gaza” would not be possible without the 600,000 euros of the money raised during the campaign launched in October under the leadership of the combined platform of French NGOs for Palestine and the National Collective for a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Nearly 70 organizations (associations, political parties and unions) were involved in mobilization. From Lille to Marseille via Strasbourg, Toulouse or Alencon, speakers and activists around the country. Three-week tour in February. “It was a real success,” testifies Julien Rivoire, a member of the New Anti-Capitalist Party and the coordinating committee of the campaign. “It happened in the markets with a sound truck, banners, leaflets and a bank. In Toulouse, the Mirail, 600 euros were collected in two hours. It was during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. There was a particular climate, people were saying ‘it is possible to make a difference “.

SNOWBALL EFFECT

Driven by this momentum, mobilizing snowballed, quickly exceeding traditional activist circles. Events, exhibitions, film screenings or symbolic release of paper boats … In the end, more than 1,500 events are held across France. Donations tributary. “We never imagined that the movement would take on such a scale,” comments Maxim Guimberteau, communications officer of “A French boat to Gaza.”

“I feel that this campaign has awakened people. A real fervor has replaced the fatalism that had won many former activists involved in the pro-Palestinian,” observes Alain Bosc, and member of the Cimade Coordinating Committee of “A boat to Gaza”. Very relayed in associations, the initiative has been enthusiastically received in poor neighborhoods and in particular “to the French families of Arab origin, sensitive to the Palestinian question and the fate of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.”

90% of individual donations

Many structures such as the Christian Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD-Terre Solidarity) or the Christians of the Mediterranean have also mobilized their networks. An appeal, launched at the initiative of the Archbishop of Sens-Auxerre and bishops of Troyes and La Rochelle, was sent to all dioceses to encourage the faithful “to a special place in their personal prayer and a community for the second flotilla of freedom to achieve its objectives in the service of peace. ”

The result of all collected 600 000 euros, 90% of donations come from individuals. According to organizers, “most people participated at 5, 10 or 50 euros.” Added to the contributions of the signatory organizations, grants from several local and payment of the foundation “A world for all.” All support checks were made payable to the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP), which opened a special account to centralize. “Everything was done in a transparent, ensures the collective. We have not accepted money from foreign countries or associations.”

46 PEOPLE IN FRENCH VESSELS

The funds raised were allocated to the purchase of two vessels, the formation of crews, and communications expenses. “Chartering vessels is what has been the most difficult in the end, recognizes Alain Bosc. We’re not owners, there have been some setbacks.”

Finally, 46 people are expected on board. Alongside the militants of the various associations involved in the campaign, carrying several personalities from the political or voluntary, as Olivier Besancenot (NPA), the Communist deputy in Le Havre, Jean-Paul Lecoq, MEP Nicole Kiil-Nielsen (EELV) the Breton sailor Jo Le Guen, or Julien Bayou, the collective “Out of colonialism.”

From June 25 FRANCE3

The “Dignity-Al Karama”, a 19-meter boat flying the French flag, left the waters of the Ile-Rousse to 11:15. It must join in the next ten to twelve days boats that make up the flotilla to Gaza.

“The entire fleet will sail next week from various Mediterranean ports,” Julien Rivoire told AFP a committee member coordinating the French countryside. Ships, including two freighters carrying medical supplies, “should reach the port of Gaza at the end of next week,” he added. Among them, a cargo bought a quarter of France and the rest of Sweden, Norway and France, making the “Dignity” the only boat in the fleet entirely French.

“We hope we can do it so as to breach the blockade,” said Omeyya Seddik, a passenger on the “Dignity”, reached by telephone by the AFP, for whom “joy is the feeling that dominates the time of departure. “This fleet is part of “the natural continuation of the revolution for freedom and democracy,” in Arab countries, said Seddik, of Tunisian origin.

Before taking off, a passenger on the boat at the stern hoisted a Palestinian flag and made the “V” for victory.

Help this Settler-Zombie video go viral before totalitarian zombiehood spreads

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Eric Verlo

OMGoodness, finally a settler video to go viral. There’s no bashing of Palestinian heads, no brandishing of guns, no drunken West Bank Settler mob on the rampage, nothing Youtube can censor, it’s pure comic theater! Here is a proverbial fat bully lurching as best he can, goading, coaxing, even screaming primordially, itching to pummel the young Palestinian cameraman who stays nimbly out of reach.

The scenario is spelled out in the Youtube comments, the cameraman is trying to document his friends’ efforts to tend their West Bank land, while Israeli Settlers repeatedly force police confrontations which result in the area being declared “militarized” and thence, theirs. While the cameraman observes, an angry settler who is already trying to allocate the land for his vineyard decides to run him off with brute force.

The ZOMBIE characterization describes Deutch’s particular Lurch-like lack of agility, but the relentless advance is a disturbing body language of Israeli Settler aggression. The hopped-up settlers move upon Palestinians with the confidence that their victims are unarmed and dare not strike back, that the Palestinian can presume that their attackers might have guns, and that sympathetic policemen have the the Israelis’ back. So yes, when it’s an able-bodied young settler advancing at a clip, clapping his fist, looking to draw blood, the effect is less comic.

Obviously, most settler videos are violence porn. Not this one — if you ignore what would have happened had Moshe Deutch got his mitts on him. That footage of course would not have survived.

Be sure to watch the follow-up, where a younger settler arrives at a gallup to reinforce Moshe Deutch’s stalled advance. The cameraman is forced to run, then looks on as the settlers slash all four tires of his car. It’s the high price he pays, but he’s got the West Bank’s Funniest Home Video.

West Bank Settlers intimidating unarmed Palestinian farmers

Irish MV Saoirse becomes 2nd victim of sabotage, cannot sail with Gaza Flotilla

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Eric Verlo

So how do nonviolent, unarmed humanitarian activists protect themselves from weapons-wielding attackers? Not very well.

But they don’t have to. Afterward, they don’t even point a finger. And it’s working.

Via too many flat screens to stop, the world audience sees that Israel will stop at nothing to starve off its remaining Palestinians, neither violence, lawsuits, attempted murder, or slander, is too much to keep humanitarians from hindering Israel’s designs on Judea and Samaria.

Now I admit I favor just a little finger pointing, particularly when it’s too early to say, concrete evidence-wise, because that brings out something even less attractive. Accuse Israel immediately and guess what, they’ll indignantly try to put the blame on others. That’s ugly.

And they accuse you of antisemitism, even if you love Jews, but don’t favor the Zionist, mass-murdering variety.

Getting aid to the beleaguered Gazans may prove more difficult than a beeline Mediterranean cruise, but this mountain of a greater Palestinian cause is coming to Mohammed.

Delegitimizing Apartheid Israel is becoming as easy as taking candy from a baby-candy-taker. While the internet hasbarapocalypse foams at the mouth applauding what may or may not have been IDF divers who rigged the MV Saoirse to sink in mid voyage, or what may or may not have been Mossad undercover agents who relieved flotilla participants of their cellphones, the eagerness of Stand-With-Israel fans to stand with such tactics is compounding with self-antisemitism.

It’s becoming more and more clear, with obstacles like the corporate media stacked against critics of Israel, that a nonviolent strategy is tantamount to success against a lawless foe. Remember our TSA considers nail-clippers to be a weapon. your average ocean-going cabin cruiser arms itself with at least a speargun or two if there becomes a need to fend off would-be petty pirates. God forbid the Gaza Flotilla be caught with tools like that.

So how do flotilla activists keep a 24-hour watch against underwater demolition teams? How do elderly activists protect themselves from paid-hoodlums holding them up? The next flotilla will need an entourage of protectors I suppose, if this what happens to this flotilla doesn’t break the blockade of Gaza for good.

First look! US Boat to Gaza, Flotilla II blockade runner The Audacity of Hope

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Democracy Now Producer Aaron Maté took a quick photo of the American boat scheduled shortly to sail with the upcoming aid flotilla to Gaza. How will President Obama respond to an effort named after his presidential campaign bestseller Audacity Of Hope? I’d suggest, by renaming his book, which he has to do anyway, the Audacity of Empty Promises. Obama has urged Palestinians to remain nonviolent, yet condemns the nonviolent convoy sailing to break Israel’s illegal siege and relieve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Press intimidation, frivolous lawfare, and sabotage, it’s hasbarapocalypse

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Flotilla2 boat to Gaza You’re looking at an underwater photo of the starboard propeller of the passenger ship “Juliano” berthed in Piraeus, Greece, waiting to sail with the “Stay Human” Freedom Flotilla II departing soon to break the siege of Gaza. Reports of sabotage babelfished, even as some flotilla participants quickly issued a retraction. As diver video documented, someone assailed the propeller shaft casing, luckily repairable, but Greek authorities could seize on the incident to delay the activists with an investigation, or insist on further inspections, using anticipation of sabotage to delay or forbid the voyage.

Whodunnit? Sooner than point the finger at whoever took the intelligence contract, better to focus on the flotilla’s irrepressible forward momentum. Notice how the Hasbara themes want to presage the relief effort’s dwindling relevance? Sabotage would grant Israel too easy success. You can’t kill activism but in the shadows.

Fortunately the flotilla vessels are arrayed at various Mediterranean ports, and the identities are being kept secret, much as the internet chorus would like to track them by satellite. So far the flotilla organizer strategies have been impeccable.

Media reports of nonviolence classes counter Israeli anticipation of violence.

The American boat’s decision to bring only a cargo of letters appears to have been a savvy maneuver around the US DOJ’s predictable enforcement of its anti-terrorism statutes. Yes, Hamas was democratically elected, but on the books it’s a terrorist entity and supporting it materially will result in charges. It seems inconceivable, but surprise seems to be a recurring judicial theme. The US delegation comprises the antiwar movements most luminary, I have to credit them now for not being too reckless. Where would the rest of us be, if they are behind bars?

Next I expect we will see the wit behind naming their boat after President Obama’s bestseller Audacity of Hope. What’s that going to do for his Google-metrics? Obama won’t be able to mention it again, without drawing reference to the Gaza relief mission he didn’t support.

The flotilla2 organizers don’t hope to provoke Israel, nor shame the IDF to “Stay Human,” they want to sail the the people of Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel asserts its right to besiege Gaza, to starve, harass and demoralize the Palestinians in hope that eventually they’ll just want to leave. And that’s why the flotilla must not pass.

Straight blogger confesses he’s lesbian

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Lesbian blogger PAULA BROOKS unmasked as straight man So a retired Air Force man has to fess up that he was “Paula Brooks,” editor of the blog LEZ GET REAL. More critically, Bill Graber, 58, of Ohio, was a shill for fellow hoaxer Thomas MacMaster aka the Gay Girl In Demascus, whose wife Britta Froelicher has yet to be implicated directly, though she’s a Syria scholar at a Neocon leaning institution, and as supposed activists, their talking points are concern trollishly generic. With Graber unmasked, LezGetReal is being handed off to alternating erstwhile shill “Linda Carbonell”, who says she doesn’t use her married name La Victoire lest she jeopardize her husband‘s job with the government. “Victory?” Hello? Commenters are all LOL because LezGetReal still won’t get a real lesbian for an editor, and tittering because Graber and MacMaster flirted online, unknowingly middle-aged-man-on-man. Heehee, yeah, I don’t think so. MSM interviewers ponder that no one appeared to intend harm, but aren’t they missing a wooded Virginia campus for the trees? If psy ops programs were indeed coordinating trolls, what do you think the motley crew would look like? No doubt you’ve encountered your share already, a drearily uncreative bunch, frequently on the fringe of the military, with their fingers in many pies, the gay issue being not so distantly DoD-related.

“Paula Brooks” was one of the smelly loose ends of the Tom MacMaster Amina Arraf hoax, so I’m glad that someone smoked Graber out. But on the other hand I’m not.

I intended, with the title of this post, to lampoon the now repeated twist of lesbian bloggers turning out to be straight men. To get attention now, you’d have to be a straight blogger who is discovered to really be a lesbian. But then no one meant to bring this kind of attention to themselves, you’d think.

Maybe you’d be wrong. The worst element of this fraudulent blogger meme, is the seed of mistrust which increasingly poisons the internet. The only edge the established media had on the blogosphere was an inherent credibility, the indoctrination that if something is in print, it must be true. Though MSM journalism has been losing ground to the superior investigative output of the internet, hoaxes such as this work in their favor.

Although it’s been fun to unmask these frauds, and seek credit for the collar, the more attention paid to the story, the more eroded becomes the public trust. Yes, we’ve proven that the net will find you out, or more precisely CAN find you out. But what’s our success rate? It feels like 100%, but that counts only the identities we question. There’s no telling how many frauds remain undetected.

And worse, internet sleuths are slashing away at the very anonymity they cherish. To be a credible voice now, you have to be completely out, you have to show your papers basically. Who celebrates that?

We may think we’ve embarrassed MacMaster and Graber and Froelicher and La Victoire, but if they are indeed intelligence spoilers, they can go right back underground and on to the next alias.

Should we discount a Hasbara hand in this? Critics seem to be condemning MacMaster and Froelicher as anti-Israel, bolstering their Palestinian advocacy identities, but really without ground. In a video interview available online, Froelicher speaks about her gig with the AFSC and outlines her strategy for helping the Palestinians: make it so they have something to lose, she explains, so they’ll be less prone to violence and radicalism. Yeah. And MacMaster writing as Gay Girl Amina once posted her dream to learn Hebrew and live in the superior democracy Israel, just like your typical Syrian girl.

And if they are spoilers, then to be unmasked, to be the embodiment of fraudsters, fleshes out exactly what their handlers want, voices to distrust, to destabilize our common supply of information.

Map of Israel is the map of Palestine

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Need a map of PALESTINE? As Palestinians push for a recognition of statehood, and Israelis pretend there’s no such thing as historic “Palestine” and won’t agree on any borders, you might be excused from wondering what a Palestinian nation would look like. Have you seen the proposed 1947 partition? It cut Palestinian leftovers in half, with the non-Jewish pieces (A) intended to be annexed by Arab neighbors or (B) leaving refugee routes for the further attrition of indigenous populations, with no intention of leaving a viable second state. Now Israel wants to settle the whole thing, and won’t even let Google Earth map the region or the “Occupied Territories” for fear a bird’s eye view of the Israeli settler encroachments would be too damning. But it’s all Zionist occupied territory isn’t it? If Israel can claim a right to exist on another’s land, why shouldn’t Palestine? Let Israel exist as an Apartheid enclave in Palestine, until their consciences get the better of them. Meanwhile, a true democracy in a one state solution.

In the struggle for Middle East land, Palestinian violence will always win

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Israel can build all the new settlements it wants, take heart, it only takes one horrific Tate-Labianca-like crime scene to curb the Zionist homecoming charade. Israel can terrorize Gaza to smithereens, the Palestinians have nowhere to flee. American Jews on the other hand, are not going to leave comfortable digs, to relocate to Jerusalem where their 11-month-old might be slashed to death in her crib. Such dastardly strategy comes at a price of course, against a military willing to defy international law and exact collective punishment for the deed of one zealot, but Israel knows that even its US billions in weapons cannot compete with one Palestinian knife that finds its mark.

Odd, isn’t it? On the battlefield, Goliath can slay an entire West Bank of Davids, but when the contest is holding ground, you can take it, but if you can’t convince your people to settle it, the land will revert to its rightful inhabitants.

I’ll leave you to decide if the murder of an Israeli settler family is off-limits. They’re moved unto properties appropriated from Palestinians, illegal settlement of occupied land, they’re ferried by armored SUVs in military convoys, their rooftops, front gates, walls and streets are guarded by soldiers, their neighborhoods buffered by “sterile zones” purged of all inhabitants, the persistence of their habitation is used to advertise for more settlers and demoralize the non-Jewish native population in waiting of cleansing. Are settlers “innocent civilians,” irrespective old or young age? Who is to blame for putting settler children into homes whose previous inhabitants have been put out on the street, who can only assail their walls with stones?

Remember too, it’s the Israeli settlers, more than the IDF soldiers, who routinely raid Palestinian homes, orchards and farms, killing their neighbors with impunity. Where does any settler get to pretend they should be considered an innocent civilian?

Arab Palestine is confronted with a slow death by attrition. Israel has never disguised its plan to ethnically purge the entire of what it calls Judea and Sumaria. What does it matter then, if resistance violence begets occupier retaliation, if this brazen home-invasion-family-murder provokes an avenging of deaths ten fold? The Russian Partisans paid fifty to one. The Gaza massacre was 300 to one. The Gilad Shalit prisoner ratio is tens of thousands to one, still well shy of US military disproportional force.

Peace activists want to curb armed resistance in favor of nonviolence, calculating that peace will come when Palestinian martyrdom awakens the Israeli conscience, or whichever comes first, Palestinian blood runs dry. This suits Israel of course, its Apartheid State needs the Palestinians gone, for Jews cannot forever pretend they have a Democray while subjugating an inferior untouchable class. So long as one Palestinian remains who fights back, Israel will never conquer Palestine.

Israel can plan all the settlement construction sites it wants, the more beautiful the better, in the end the people of Palestine can claim them in partial compensation.

Are FBI raids on activists focused on UNAC strategies?

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Eric Verlo

The UNAC is claiming that recent FBI raids on the offices of various antiwar organizations are linked to those which attended its July conference, an attempt to coordinate national antiwar activities.

Even the title of the conference was never pinned down. Here are the 28 action points decided for the upcoming year, which reads like a clearinghouse of ideas.

Action Program Adopted by the National Conference to Bring the Troops Home Now!

Albany, New York, July 25, 2010

1.
The Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the United Auto Workers (UAW) have invited peace organizations to endorse and participate in a campaign for Jobs, Justice, and Peace. We endorse this campaign and plan to be a part of it. On August 28, 2010, in Detroit, we will march on the anniversary of that day in 1963 when Walter Reuther, president of the UAW, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders joined with hundreds of thousands of Americans for the March on Washington. In Detroit, prior to the March on Washington, 125,000 marchers participated in the Freedom Walk led by Dr. King. At the march, King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech for the first time before sharing it with the world in Washington. This year, a massive march has been called for October 2 in Washington. We will begin to build momentum again in Detroit on August 28th. We also endorse the August 28, 2010 Reclaim the Dream Rally and March called by Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network to begin at 11 a.m. at Dunbar High School, 1301 New Jersey Avenue Northwest, Washington D.C. .

2.
Endorse, promote and mobilize for the Saturday, October 2nd “One Nation” march on Washington, DC initiated by 1199SEIU and the NAACP, now being promoted by a growing coalition, which includes the AFL-CIO and U.S. Labor Against the War, and civil rights, peace and other social justice forces in support of the demand for jobs, redirection of national resources from militarism and war to meeting human needs, fully funding vital social programs, and addressing the fiscal crisis of state and local governments. Organize and build an antiwar contingent to participate in the march. Launch a full-scale campaign to get endorsements for the October 2 march on Washington commencing with the final plenary session of this conference.

3.
Endorse the call issued by a range of student groups for Thursday, October 7, as a national day of action to defend education from the horrendous budget cuts that are laying off teachers, closing schools, raising tuition and limiting access to education, especially for working and low income people. Demand “Money for Education, not U.S. Occupations” and otherwise link the cuts in spending for education to the astronomical costs of U.S. wars and occupations.

4.
Devote October 7-16 to organizing local and regional protests to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan through demonstrations, marches, rallies, vigils, teach-ins, cultural events and other actions to demand an immediate end to the wars and occupations in both Iraq and Afghanistan and complete withdrawal of all military forces and private security contractors and other mercenaries. The nature and scheduling of these events will reflect the needs of local sponsors and should be designed to attract broad co-sponsorship and diverse participation of antiwar forces with other social justice organizations and progressive constituencies.

5.
The U.S. military is the largest polluter in the world. Therefore, we endorse the “climate chaos” demonstration in Washington D.C. on October 11, coordinated by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance.

6.
Support and build Remember Fallujah Week November 15-19.

7.
Join the new and existing broad-based campaigns to fund human needs and cut the military budget. Join with organizations representing the fight against cutbacks (especially labor and community groups) to build coalitions at the city/town, state and national level. Draft resolutions for city councils, town and village meetings and voter referendum ballot questions linking astronomical war spending to denial of essential public services at home. (Model resolutions and ballot questions will be circulated for consideration of local groups.) Obtain endorsements of elected officials, town and city councils, state parties and legislatures, and labor bodies. Work the legislative process to make military spending an issue. Oppose specific military funding programs and bills, and couple them with human needs funding issues. Use lobbying and other forms of protest, including civil disobedience campaigns, to focus attention on the issue.

8.
Mid-March, 2011 nationally coordinated local teach-ins and protests to mark the eighth year of the Iraq War and to prepare for bi-coastal spring demonstrations the following month.

9.
Bi-Coastal mass spring mobilizations in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles on April 9, 2011. These will be accompanied by distinct and separate non-violent direct actions on the same day. A prime component of these mobilizations will be major efforts to include broad new forces from youth to veterans to trade unionists to civil and human rights groups to the Arab, Muslim and other oppressed communities, to environmental organizations, social justice and faith-based groups. Veterans and military families will be key to these mobilizations with special efforts to organize this community to be the lead contingent. Launch a full-scale campaign to get endorsements for these actions commencing with the final plenary session of this conference.

10.
Select a week prior to or after the April actions for local lobbying of elected officials at a time when Congress is not in session. Lobbying to take multiple forms from meeting with local officials to protests at their offices and homes. We will attend the town hall meetings of our Congresspersons and confront them vigorously on their support for the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and sanctions on Iran. We also will press them on the unconstitutional diminution of the civil liberties of all Americans and targeted populations.

11.
Consistent with the call to include broad popular sectors of society in our efforts and to contend with the challenges of opposing U.S. wars and occupations while also rejecting attacks at home, National Peace Conference participants will join May Day actions on May 1, 2011, so as to unite all those standing against war and for rights. U.S. military and trade wars force millions of refugees and migrants to the U.S., where they face growing repression, including mass detentions and deportations. Many immigrants, including youth, are forced into the military, through the economic draft as well as under threat of deportation and using false promises of citizenship. By standing together as one on May Day, the antiwar and immigrant rights movements make clear their united stand against U.S. wars and for the rights of all at home and abroad.

12.
National tours: Organize, over a series of months, nationally-coordinated tours of prominent speakers and local activists that link the demands for immediate withdrawal to the demands for funding social programs, as outlined above. Encourage alternatives to military/lethal intervention, relying on research and experience of local and international peace team efforts.

13.
Pressure on Iran from the U.S., Israel and other quarters continues to rise and the threat of a catastrophic military attack on Iran, as well as the ratcheting up of punitive sanctions that primarily impact the people of that country, are of grave concern. In the event of an imminent U.S. government attack on Iran, or such an attack, or a U.S.-backed Israeli attack against Iran, or any other major international crisis triggered by U.S. military action, a continuations committee approved by the conference will mount rapid, broad and nationally coordinated protests by antiwar and social justice activists.

14.
In the event of U.S.-backed military action by Israel against Palestinians, aid activists attempting to end the blockade of Gaza, or attacks on other countries such as Lebanon, Syria, or Iran, a continuations committee approved by the conference will condemn such attacks and support widespread protest actions.

15.
In solidarity with the antiwar movements of Japan and Korea, each calling for U.S. Troops to Get Out Now, and given the great increase in U.S. military preparations against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, National Peace Conference participants will organize immediate protests following any attack by the U.S. on Korea. U.S. war preparations include stockpiling hundreds of bunker-busters and conducting major war games near the territorial waters of China and Korea. In keeping with our stand for the right of self-determination and our demand of Out Now, the National Peace Conference calls for Bringing All U.S. Troops Home Now!

16.
Support actions to end the Israeli occupation and repression of Palestinians and the blockade of Gaza.

17.
Support actions aimed at dismantling the Cold War nuclear, biological, radiological and chemical weapons and delivery systems. Support actions aimed at stopping the nuclear renaissance of this Administration, which has proposed to spend $80 billion over the next 10 years to build three new nuclear bomb making facilities and “well over” $100 billion over the same period to modernize nuclear weapons delivery systems. We must support actions aimed at dismantling nuclear, biological, radiological and chemical weapons and delivery systems. We must oppose the re-opening of the uranium mining industry, new nuclear power plants, and extraction of other fossil fuels that the military consumes.

18.
Work in solidarity with GIs, veterans, and military families to support their campaigns and calls for action. Demand support for the troops when they return home and support efforts to counter military recruitment.

19.
Take actions against war profiteers, including oil and energy companies, weapons manufacturers, and engineering firms, whose contractors are working to insure U.S. economic control of Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s resources.

20.
Support actions, educational efforts and lobbying campaigns to promote a transition to a sustainable peace economy.

21.
Develop and implement a multi-pronged national media campaign which includes the following: the honing of a message which will capture our message: “End the Wars and Occupations, Bring the Dollars Home;” a fundraising campaign which would enable the creation and national placement and broadcast of professionally developed print ads as public service radio and television spots which communicate this imperative to the public as a whole (which would involve coordinated outreach to some major funders); outreach to sympathetic media artists to enable the creation of these pieces; an intentional, aggressive, coordinated campaign to garner interviews on as many targeted national news venues as possible which would feature movement voices speaking our nationally coordinated message to the honed; a plan to place on message op-ed pieces in papers around the country on a nationally coordinated schedule.

22.
We demand the immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq, and an end to drone attacks on Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries and call for self-determination for the people of all countries. In this demand is the necessity for full truth and transparency regarding all U.S./NATO actions and an expanded development of independent news sources for broad public knowledge of the state of the wars and occupations. We demand an end to censorship of news topics and full democratic access to freedom of information within the U.S. NATO Military Industrial Media Empire.

23.
We call for the equal participation of women in all aspects of the antiwar movement. We propose nonviolent direct actions either in Congressional offices or other appropriate and strategic locations, possibly defense contractors, Federal Buildings, or military bases in the U.S. These actions would be local and coordinated nationally, i.e., the same day for everyone (times may vary). The actions would probably result in arrests for sitting in after offices close. Entering certain facilities could also result in arrests. Participants would be prepared for that possible outcome before joining the action. Nonviolence training would be offered locally, with lists of trainers being made available. The message/demand would be a vote, a congressional action to end the wars: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Close U.S. bases. Costs of war and financial issues related to social needs neglected because of war spending would need to be studied and statements regarding same be prepared before the actions. Press release would encourage coverage because of the actions being local and nationally coordinated.

24.
We will convene one or more committees or conferences for the purpose of identifying and arranging boycotts, sit-ins, and other actions that directly interfere with the immoral aspects of the violence and wars that we protest.

25.
We call for the immediate release from Israeli prisons of Mordechai Vanunu and for ending restrictions on his right to speak. We also call upon the Israeli government to let him travel freely and to leave Israel permanently if he so desires.

26.
We oppose the prosecution for Bradley Manning for being the source of the Wikileaks leaks. Manning has done what all GIs should do when they see war crimes: expose them! Bradley Manning’s prosecution sends a message that if you expose illegal activity in the military, you will be prosecuted. We call for the unconditional release of Bradley Manning and an end to all war crimes.

27.
We call for building and expanding the movement for peace by consciously and continually linking it with the urgent necessity to create jobs and fund social needs. We call for support from the antiwar movement to tie the wars and the funding for the wars to the urgent domestic issues through leaflets, signs, banners and active participation in the growing number of mass actions demanding jobs, health care, housing, education and immigrant rights such as:

July 25 – March in Albany in Support of Muslims Targeted by Preemptive Prosecution called by the Muslim Solidarity Committee and Project SALAM.

July 29 & 30 – Boycott Arizona Actions across the country as racist Arizona law SB 1070 goes into effect, including the mass march July 30 in NYC as the Arizona Diamondbacks play the Mets.

All the other mass actions listed above leading up to the bi-coastal actions on April 9, 2011.

28.
The continuations committee elected at this conference shall reach out to other peace and social justice groups holding protests in the fall of 2010 and the spring of 2011, where such groups’ demands and tactics are not inconsistent with those adopted at the UNAC conference, on behalf of exploring ways to maximize unity within the peace and social justice movements this fall and next spring.

PPLFF says no BDS of Israeli Apartheid

Posted on September 23, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Crap. The Anti-Apartheid BDS campaign targeted Cannes because of it, Hollywood luminaries boycotted the Toronto Film Festival over the same principles in 2009, you’d think the Springs gay community might have paid heed. Instead the 2010 Pikes Peak Lavender Film Festival opted to screen the Israeli melodrama Eyes Wide Open, Zionists’ illegal appropriation of Jerusalem be damned. When Canadian gays made international news for allowing Queers Against Israeli Apartheid to march in their pride parade, in spite of Jewish philanthropists pressuring the City of Toronto to withdraw funding, I hoped that COS pride festivities might opt to climb aboard. Instead this weekend Colorado Springs gets a full-on endorsement of Israel’s ongoing illegal invasion of Palestine.

It was a false hope. The Pikes Peak area gay community has found itself so embattled since Amendment Two’s 1992 measure to legalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, that common social causes are easily crowded out by Gay Marriage, DADT and brand recognition for LGBT. So much so that social justice activists can only participate in the pride parade on the condition that it be about solidarity, not antiwar. With gay issues being so politicized, should gays and lesbians get a pass on staying apolitical about war or racism? Whatever excuses we make, it’s a perfectly flamboyant example of silence equals consent. I count apolitical queens every bit as complicit with US military criminality as the above-it-all new-agers and NASCAR jackasses.

Set in an Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem, Eyes Wide Open doesn’t address the Israeli-Palestinian troubles, it ignores them, effectively normalizing an ethnically-cleansed Palestine. The film tells the story of an extramarital gay affair between Jewish scholars, blablabla, minus the evictions of Palestinians in the path of encroachment by Israeli settlers, and the hijacking of Muslim holy sites . “Beverly Hills 90210” was fine without scenes of the LAPD repression of Watts or East LA, but 90210 wasn’t pretending to be taped on non-Jewish land.

Eyes Wide Open was the title of the 2005 American Friends Service Committee antiwar boot-counting exercise to open American eyes to the enormity of casualties of the Iraq War — before the Eyes Wide Open slogan was adopted by a 2008 Israeli PR project to encourage American Jews to pay more attention to their birthright offer of Israeli citizenship. The death count of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan (now that the AFSC has been cleared to consider both wars illegal) has long since outgrown the AFSC budget for buying boots or lugging them around in rented trucks, and now EWO (Einaym Pkuhot) is a miserable tale about infidelity and sin.

Frankly, Trembling Before G-d was an incredible documentary about gay Orthodox men struggling with the DADT policy of Orthodox Judaism. I remember seeing it at the 2003 PPLFF, or so. I remember Rabbinical experts expounded on both sides of the argument with authority and humor. But that was before the BDS movement to curb Israel’s racist apartheid system. You either support the picket or you scab.

Objective reviews of EWO are scarce in the Zionist-dominated press, and increasing numbers are honoring the cultural and academic boycott of Israeli Apartheid. Refusing to see EWO is by no means concluding it is bad. For all I know the film may be using the ostracism of homosexuals within the Orthodox community to represent the growing alienation Israelis are feeling in the face of the open revulsion expressing itself by the rest of the world. Maybe it’s brilliant.

But I’m not deliberating about whether to see it. BDS means no to Israel, to its statesmen, artists, scholars and products. And the American companies which support Israel’s policy of Apartheid, several dozen, and now that includes our own PPLFF.

Furkan Dogan was no Leon Klinghoffer, (nor Abu Abbas, ergo no press for him)

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Interesting that when Palestinians hijack a passenger ship, and kill one person, it’s quite a different story than when the Israelis pirate a ship and kill nine, even when one is an American. We remember the Achille Lauro, and the wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer executed when the hijackers’ demands were being ignored. 19-year-old Furkan Dogan was executed without the Israeli Commandos making clear why they had any authority to attack the Mavi Marmara in international waters. Not one complaint from the US press or government. The difference is of course that Dogan was not Jewish, but Muslim. Israel’s own brand of antisemitic racism, obviously America’s too.

I wonder if Midnight on the Mavi Marmara will be immortalized like the Voyage of Terror: the Achille Lauro Affair? We all know that story. Evil Arabs seize innocent passengers, negotiate release of passengers for escape flight, American renege on safe passage, intercept plane and capture the terrorists, all except for the ringleader whose name become household for nefarious evildoer. Americans still knew the Iagoian Abu Abbas when he was captured in the invasion of Iraq and died in US captivity. What had been the point of hijacking the Achille Lauro? Prisoner release? Something about Palestine and Israel? That part is certainly fuzzy.

Apparently giving voice to the motives of terrorist acts is to play into their hands, ergo, they’re simply despicable “terrorists,” no one else’s freedom fighters.

Gaza we are coming

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Plans are once again underway for another attempt to run the blockade of Gaza. Two ships are set to sail from Lebanon today or tomorrow, despite intimidation from Israel –which worked to prevent the aid ship INFANTS OF GAZA scheduled to leave from Iran. As a result, the Israeli navy is maneuvering to intercept, as it did for the recent Libyan AMALTHEA, and the Irish RACHEL CORRIE before that. Israel is even preparing “Flotilla 13,” the Shayetet commandos who killed nine activists on the Mavi Marmara in May. If it does leave, the Lebanese convoy will consist of a ship named MARYAM, carrying only women and nuns, and the JULIA (the Naji Al Ali) carrying journalist and Reporters Without Borders. It’s hard to imagine what reception the journalists are intent to document, Israel can hardly surpass itself with brutality, so will it be news?

Meanwhile another flotilla is in the works for September, which may include Spanish footballers. Canadian activists have announced efforts to contribute a Canadian ship, and US activists are raising funds for an American ship, to be named “The Audacity of Hope,” after President Obama’s autobiographical self-promotion. Personally I think the pay-it-forward Nobel Prize to Obama paid squat. Obama couldn’t even muster outrage over Israel’s murder of the Freedom Flotilla activists, nor would he sanction an international investigation. Why credit him with any part of the rescue of the Palestinians of Gaza?

The naming of “Maryam” or Mariam, after the Virgin Mary is already being resisted by the Israeli press, which is referring to the ship by its previous identity JUNIA. No doubt the all-woman ship will present a challenge to the brutality-prone IDF.

The confusion over the identity of Julia/Junia may be part of the subterfuge meant to evade Israel sabotage which succeeded in hampering the Freedom Flotilla’s CHALLENGER I and II.

GAZA WE ARE COMING is the title of a documentary made about the earlier attempts to break the siege of Gaza by sea. The project is more complicated than you might think, having to avoid the MOSSAD at every turn. Each successive wave has involved bigger ships, so far, taken as prizes by Israel. Will a sovereign government finally step forward to provide official escort to a convoy?

The United Nations has ruled the siege of Gaza to be illegal. Israel itself pretends that Gaza is autonomous, thus the naval blockade cannot be a pretext to protect Israeli waters. Debates in the media about who’s in the right are merely charades.

MV Rachel Corrie outsmarts Israeli navy, Hasbara pundits, US media, itself

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Eric Verlo

All eyes are on the MV Rachel Corrie, but where are the pictures?! There hasn’t been a photograph of the relief ship since she left Ireland, even then in darkness. Worrying everyone that her attempt to run the Gaza blockade would be cloaked like the USS Liberty, the Freedom Flotilla straggler has pulled a fast one and approached Gaza from the East, visible from the coast of Egypt, not really.

At 4AM GMT one of her support groups Tweeted that the MV Rachel Corrie had passed Alexandria. Curious geometry that. By latitude, I could be said to round Malta everyday. The Corrie passed nothing and no one.

Is it a testament to the Zionist influence over not just the US media but the international media, that there are no live correspondents awaiting the Rachel Corrie? Even paparazzi stringers could make a fortune if they hired a boat to accost what must surely be the most famous ship since the maritime misadventure of the Sea Shepherd Society’s Ady Gil.

The MV Rachel Corrie set off from Ireland in darkness, prohibiting a public sendoff and certainly any good pictures. Their strategy to confront the Israeli navy during daylight presumes they will be able to cache whatever footage they get of their interception. Without third party witnesses, whatever befalls the relief ship will never see the light of day, even in the light of day.

I’ll admit it, we held a local protest on Monday in response to Israel’s violent attack on the Freedom Flotilla. It was a decent turnout for having been spontaneous, but I didn’t take any pictures, and we got no press. The only evidence that it happened rests with the cars which drove by, the passersby who approached us to defend Israel being right no matter what, and our own memories of feeling like we did something. I hate that kind of activism.

If an activist pushes a tree over in the woods, but nobody is there to see it, that gesture hasn’t activated anyone.

Photos of the Rachel Corrie have been so sparse that media outlets are still using the image used on the Corrie’s unveiling, featuring a Photoshopped logo on her stern. Her previous name was still the Linda, but enthusiastic activists no doubt wanted to get the ball rolling.

UPDATE 6/5: And there she is finally, we can now see her being guided into port by Israeli pilots. If the IDF account is to be believed, the activists offered the boarding party a ladder. So there it was, broad daylight, not a reporter present, in international waters where observers would have had every right to be.

Was all the reaction to the violence visited upon the Mavi Marmara all bluster? Did the various Free Gaza enterprises receive additional donations or no? Italy ad Greece are teeming with multimillion dollar motor yachts with helipads which could have steamed to the scene.

Apparently online fans didn’t get the memo that the cruise of the Rachel Corrie was to come to naught. Neither Al-Jazeera, Russia Today or Press TV were preparing for breaking news. To say nothing about CNN or Sky. Not even in Gaza were authorities preparing for an auspicious arrival.

Did it happen? I was beginning to wonder if the MV Rachel Corrie existed at all. Imagine donors and well-wishers and even the seasick crew told this is about aid, not publicity. It’s about one shipload, not the hundred ships Gaza needs. It seemed a cruel joke to make Gazans hopeful based on an effort that was never tangable, and then ultimately would never reach them.

Did the Rachel Corrie really want to get through? Is it enough to travel the ocean to place your offering at the feet of the wall, as opposed to trying to pierce what you accuse to be an illegal blockade? What do you gain by submitting to your assailant, especially if no one’s watching? This humanitarian effort for the people of Gaza became like a Frisbee thrown vaguely in their direction. Except the Palestinians aren’t at liberty to run and catch it. From afar we can only shout, “Sorry!”

Does Israel’s STAND WITH US stand against humanitarian aid to Gaza?

Posted on May 27, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Hey! Let’s seize this opportunity to get around the usual US media blackout on sympathy-for- Palestine activism. American members of Stand With Us, the Israeli outreach group on American college campuses, do YOU stand against the relief convoy defying Israel’s naval blockade to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinians of Gaza? StandWithUs is forming an IDF-booster fleet to protest the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as it seeks passage between the Israeli navy ships.

Stand With Us accuses the convoy organizers of trying to make Israel look bad. By holding Gaza under siege, who exactly is pretending not to look bad? If Israel’s navy indeed raids the convoy ships and arrests all on board, Israel’s image will be degraded further.

Now add yahoos in the water, egging on their soldiers, or more probably, protesting that they’re not beating the activists severely enough. Won’t that mirror the settler behavior in the West Bank, where they torment the Palestinians under the protection of the IDF? And when prevented by the soldiers, the settlers take their anger out on the Palestinians again.

It appears Israel’s Stand With Us club intends to make all their members look bad.

Why would anyone block humanitarian relief? If indeed the peace activists are trying to give Israel a black eye, let them pass.

What can you do? Contact a local chapter of Stand With Us and as them if they are lobbying for solidarity with such an activity as their counter-flotilla.

Here’s an excerpt from the Jerusalem Post in which StandWithUs leaders deny there’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Enjoy:

“What the other anti-Israel flotilla is doing is ignoring human rights abuses and focusing on a fake situation,” Michael Dickson, StandWithUs Israel Director, told The Jerusalem Post Thursday.

Dickson believes the European flotilla cares more about hurting Israel than helping the Palestinians in Gaza.

Lior Meyer, a StandWithUs Project Manager planning the counter flotilla, hopes their demonstration will show that Gaza is under Hamas siege, rather than Israeli occupation.

“I hope they’re not expecting anything. When someone’s surprised by the truth it’s only a good thing,” Meyer said, claiming that few people know the nature of Hamas’s control.

Dickson said that the European activists’ aid could have reached Gaza in one day instead of one week if they weren’t interested in making a publicity statement.

“I think that the key thing is that this is not some fare minded mission coming in that cares for peace. Their flotilla is driven by hate rather than peace. They don’t really care about the victims who live under Hamas in Gaza and the south of Israel,”

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